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A rather new business trend concerns social responsible or ethical marketing. Instead of just selling products and brands it makes professional sense to “bundle” or associate the purchase of a product with some altruist activity. While the market share of ethical subcategories in most countries is still confined to a few percentages of the total market at best, it appears that the segment will grow during the next decade. The increased interest for sustainability is found within many western societies both within the business community, academic circles, the political system and among plain consumers. Up to now relatively few empirical studies have focused on the topic. The present study is based on a large scale panel study and uses the German coffee market for profiling the consumer of faire trade coffee and analyzes how this consumer differs from the mainstream consumer. Also, we explore why some consumers intend to buy fair trade coffee but do not purchase the product (and vice versa). Several interesting findings are revealed. Implications for promotion of fair trade coffee are discussed and suggestions for further research are addressed.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how essential dimensions of customer experience management (CEM) drive business performance in Danish companies.
Methodology/approach – An empirical study is conducted to investigate the relationships between seven CEM dimensions, differentiation, market performance and financial performance. The conceptual model is operationalized by a structural equation model, and the model is estimated and tested by using the partial least squares method. A survey among 484 companies in Denmark forms the empirical basis for the study.
Findings – The findings provide evidence that the seven CEM dimensions influence financial performance. The high performing companies differentiate significantly from the low performing companies with regard to how they master CEM. All seven CEM dimensions are essential in producing differentiation, market performance and financial performance.
Research limitations – This study is limited to the seven identified CEM dimensions in Danish companies.
Practical implications – This study has clear implications in terms of identifying and measuring the importance of essential CEM dimensions which influence business performance. The results can help companies to understand CEM and develop CEM strategies.
Originality/value – The paper provides a deeper insight into CEM and how CEM works.

The present study is based on a large scale panel survey and uses the German market for profiling
the consumer of ecological margarine. We analyze how this consumer differs from the mainstream
consumer. Consumers of ecological margarine are categorized as light- , medium-, heavy-users and
loyalists. Also, we explore why some consumers - when being asked - intend to buy ecological
margarine but do not purchase the product (and vice versa). A cluster analysis of non-purchasers of
ecological margarine shows at least one sizeable cluster of non-purchasers possess views on ecostatements
that are more eco-prone than loyal purchasers of eco-margarine. Several other interesting
findings are revealed. Implications for promotion of ecological margarine are discussed (not in the
present draft but at the conference).

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The self-generated validity theory (Feldman and Lynch 1988) uses the following arguments: First, re-existing intentions may become more accessible in memory when the researcher asks the question. The measurement process thereby leads survey respondents to form judgments that they otherwise would not access in their memory or that they otherwise would not form. Second, higher relative accessibility of intentions, compared with other inputs for purchase decisions may make subsequent purchase behavior more consistent with prior intentions. A couple of studies provide support of the self-generated validity theory for public opinion (Simmons, Bickart, and Lynch 1993) and marketing research (Fitzsimons and Morwitz 1996; Morwitz and Fitzsimons 2004; Morwitz, Johnson, and Schmittlein 1993). While the self-generated validity theory may apply for high involvement products it does not seem to affect moderate and low involvement product categories.

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The International IPSERA Workshop on Customer Attractiveness, Supplier Satisfaction and Customer Value. 25-26 November 2010

Ellegaard, Chris; Freytag, Per V.(Frederiksberg, 2010)

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Abstract:

Reports on supply chain management (SCM) failure are becoming more frequent in the SCM literature, despite widespread recognition of the business potential associated with such optimizations of operational buyer-supplier interfaces. Some failures can be ascribed to imbalances in the net benefits realized by the buying and supplying company implementing SCM. Failed SCM initiatives hurt the buying company’s customer attractiveness and limit opportunities for long term value creation with suppliers. Hence, an important task for the buying company is the management of SCM initiatives in a way that benefits both parties. However, SCM costs and benefits often materialise as the result of complex interactive processes between buyer and supplier actors, which makes SCM a challenging management task. To increase the understanding of these complex processes, this study identifies the various types of supplier costs and benefits resulting from the failed VMI initiative of a multinational company. While the benefits from this case turn out to be few, the costs appear in large variety and scale. More importantly, we uncover the underlying mechanisms generating these costs, thereby enabling managers to identify and avoid the costs. Based on the findings, we propose pre-project classification of supplier VMI readiness to allow more beneficial implementation as a key managerial implication.

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Greenland is the largest island of the world. It is mostly covered by an ice cap, but with an ice free territory of the same size as the territory of Sweden and 8 times the territory of Denmark. The size of the population in Greenland has been stable since 1970’s and include 56.000 persons.
Until Second World War Greenland was an almost closed territory, you had to have a permission to go there, and only few permissions were given. The size of the population at that time was less than 4000.

Brand associations have been linked to brand response in numerous ways. Much
research has focused on the number, valence and uniqueness of brand associations. This
paper focuses on another association facet which managerially-oriented brand literature
frequently highlights as a sign of brand strength: Brand consensus, that is, the degree to
which people elicit the same associations when confronted with a brand. We introduce
two meaningful operationalizations of consensus (group- and individual-level) and
discuss and test the link between consensus and brand response. Our results, which are
based on a large-scale study for an international luxury brand, show that for individual
consumers high levels of brand consensus tend to foster positive brand response whereas
for a group as a whole too much brand consensus tends to be detrimental.

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This article studies the theoretical and applied development of the creative economy. There exists many definitions of creative industries, creative economy and experience economy, all dealing with the same core problematic. It is why it is chosen in this article to talk about the creative economy complex. The ideas to the different elements in the complex have been developed over the last 20 years. A conclusion on experience economy and creative industries is presented on page 7. It is followed by a presentation of how the creative economy complex has been applied in the Baltic Sea Countries and by a section on the development of the creative economy complex after the financial crisis in 2008.
It is found that the complex and its development has been closely related to the business cycle development, implying that the complex from being a general theory in times with positive business cycle development has changed to become more specific and integrated into marketing, regional economy and innovation theory when the business cycle changes to recession and when state debt becomes a main economic problem.

Problems are inevitable in buyer supplier relationships. Purchasing professionals spend considerable time solving operational problems, such as those pertaining to quality and delivery performance. This paper reports on a qualitative study of problem solving processes in three buyer-supplier relationships. These processes are time consuming, costly, and involve a number of actors in both the buying and supplying companies. The theoretical framework that forms the basis for the study is the problem solving model of Lang, Dittrich, and White (1978). The findings show that coordination of problem perceptions and motivation of all involved actors are main challenges for the responsible problem solver. Furthermore, communication plays a vital role to mobilize the involved actors.

Hitherto literature in the area of luxury and luxury brands predominantly applies a
management-oriented view of luxury. This project departs from traditional views on
luxury by focusing on consumers’ experiences with what they perceive as luxury. More
specifically, the objective is to enhance understanding regarding how luxury experiences
contribute to consumers’ selves. The empirical study is exploratory in nature and relies
on consumer diaries regarding consumer luxury experiences. This project contributes to
existing literature by outlining four different forms of how luxury relates to consumers’
selves.

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Managers’ mindset about the sustainability construct and its triggers is the topic dealt with in the paper. The interviewed managers are all working in companies expressing a commitment on sustainability in their external communication. However, our findings reveal that their commitment is pursued from different business models, visions and ideas about the sustainability construct. We found that sustainability is not triggered, approached and practiced in accordance with one overall mindset. Four interrelated mindsets emerged - due to that sustainability is a learning process and thus formed and developed over time.

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Cities increasingly brand themselves as an attractive place for tourists, investors, business and workforce. Yet, most place branding efforts do not take the diversity of their stakeholders and the variety of place perceptions into account. Our study, however, reveals significant discrepancies between internal and external stakeholders’ mental representations of a place brand, using the city of Hamburg as an example. We therefore argue that place brand management needs to align its brand communication with stakeholders’ interests, using an integrated approach to developing city-specific strategies for building target group-specific place brand architecture.

The role of marketing within companies and organisations has been discussed for a long time,
as well as its opportunities for influence – not least in times of financial constraints and
difficult economic contexts. Through in-depth interviews we investigated how nine Danish
top executives see the marketing department’s potential for influence within companies in
general and in their specific organisations. The objective was to gain deep insight into the
informants’ experiences with marketing and its position within Danish companies and to
relate this insight to the level of market orientation. We found strong similarities with other
research into the antecedents of marketing’s influence and established another key factor,
namely employee competencies and thereby the responsibility of human resource
management as well as a cultural moderator, namely creativity bias of marketing employees.

This paper presents evidence for shared insight moments in real world design processes in the context of product development for a large international medical appliance manufacturer. The findings are discussed related to the existing literature of insight in creative processes and regarding possible explanations from analoguous fields of interest, like brainstorming and multiple discovery.

Relational norms provide behavioural guidelines for individual actors interacting in business relationships. Frequently, norms are violated and the involved actors initiate a normalization process to restore exchange order. However, in rare instances violations occur with a severity where the exchange cannot be normalized by the means available in the interpersonal relationship. Furthermore, dissolution is not an option due to high perceived dependence. In this paper, we report on an investigation of three such severe norm violation episodes. We identify the violated norm sets and violating behaviours of core actors along with emotional reactions and effects on the business exchange. In addition, we map the processes of violation and normalization. We find evidence of serial norm violations, causing the interpersonal relationship to enter a state of suspension. Furthermore, cross case analysis shows that exchange was normalised through an organizational level process of alternative actor channel activation and executive intervention.

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In the past decades tourism has grown rapidly in connection with globalization. Business tourism especially has increased heavily and represents one of the largest and fastest growing sectors within the tourism sphere (Lyck 2012:2).
Alongside, the growing globalization and consumption have created a need for an increased awareness of the threats posed by an overuse of non-renewable resources. Subsequently, the concept of sustainability has come into focus.
A commonly accepted definition of sustainability was made by the Brundtland Commission in 1987: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987:43). The concept of sustainability is often associated with the three pillars: Environment, society and economy (Lyck 2012:1, Weaver & Lawton 2006). In relation to the industry of tourism, sustainability can be described as: Sustainability principles refer to the environmental, economic and socio-cultural aspects of tourism development, and a suitable balance must be established between these three dimensions to guarantee long-term sustainability. (UNWTO, Lyck 2012:1). The focus in this article will be on how to
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establish social and environmental sustainability in a way that is compatible with economical sustainability within the meetings industry.

Buying behaviour theory goes back to the start of the 50’s and over the years different models have been developed influenced by different sociological views and trends. In the age of digitalization and e-commerce these theories seem to be less useful and need revision. In the early days of the Web, research argues for a broader view on the complex decision process (Bettman et al., 1998; Hansen, 2005) and regards consumers having constructive decision processes. In the light of on-line sale additional perspectives on decision-models are still needed and recent research emphasizes the important in studying relations between human visual attention and intention to purchase (Clement, 2013).
Several companies have found an additional market place on-line, whereas the appearance of the products is often very similar to the physical shop. This goes especially for pharmaceutical products, where pictures of the product package together with pictures of the pills are used as eye-catcher on-line. The market for e-health is increasing (Usher and Skinner, 2010) and distribution of consumers purchasing on-line health products looks similar to the distribution in average populations. As the on-line drug store goes across culture and national borders it also challenges marketer to make the right set-up for a web-shop. In this paper customers’ visual attention during search for drugs on-line is investigated, relating visual attention and evaluation to a particular web-design.